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Boston 2024: Do Olympics need to be “walkable”?

Boston 2024 co-chair David Manfredi is proud of the bid committee’s plans to have walkable, compact Olympics, with 28 of 33 venues within 6.2 miles of the athletes’ village, AP reports.

But is that really important?

For someone like me, who goes gallivanting around the Olympics as quickly as Beijing buses will allow, sure. And perhaps for other reporters, not to mention all the muckety-mucks who need special lanes so they can zip across the venues to see Usain Bolt and Kerri Walsh in the same hour.

Do the Games need to be designed for people like … us?

Maybe we don’t want athletes in buses an hour a day. But the notion of cramming tens of thousands of people in a small space creates a few issues, doesn’t it?